Medieval Medicine

23 Apr

By rnaylor

On Monday 3rd April John Putley came in to do a medieval medicine workshop with years 9 and 10 as part of their GCSE course. He had many interesting replica artefacts to show how medieval medicine was practised. It was pretty gruesome as many operations looked extremely painful such as trephining (drilling a hole in the skull), amputation with just a sharp knife and eye surgery – all this without anaesthetic! If all those operations did not cure you then you could always be bleed of your ‘excess’ blood which was making you ‘sick’! Just make sure the doctor doesn’t forget your there and bleed you to death! All these methods and ideas carried on well into the 1700s – thankfully things are a little different in the 21st Century!